First Contact
by Sieses Detkrah
Summary: Even the smallest changes can lead to things being drastically different, but why do that when you can just throw caution to the wind and throw everything to fate? Peter Pettigrew certainly did, and would perhaps learn that not knowing what would happen to your enemy didn't quite mean it would be bad for them.
1. In Which Peter Screws Everything Up

In Which Peter Screws Everything Up

Peter Pettigrew had never seen a situation degrade as quickly as the one in font of him had. Not even when he had been hanging around with his old friends in Hogwarts, pranksters as they had been.

It seemed like a good way of proving that there was nothing to fear from Harry when the Dark Lord challenged him to a duel, and for a while that had been exactly what happened. Not a single spell Harry cast got anywhere near hitting the Dark Lord, he had gotten floored by a number of spells cast by the more experienced wizard, and it was overall much more of a show than it was anything even resembling a fight. For one very brief moment, Peter was absolutely certain that he had made the right decision by joining the Death Eaters.

It was a feeling not to last, and soon the two duelists found themselves with a golden band of light connecting their wands to one another, fighting for dominance in the strange magical reaction the likes of which Peter had never seen before. Any hopes that the Dark Lord would achieve victory were quickly dashed, with Harry's end of the band slowly but surely making its way over to the other combatant.

And then the Dark Lord was finally overcome, resulting in a sight that caused Peter on small amount of distress - some strange ghostly representation of James and Lily showing up to cheer the boy on, along with all of the Dark Lord's more recent victims.

When the boy finally broke the connection, Peter knew the duel was over. Although he was no doubt trying to hide it from the onlookers, the Dark Lord was exhausted from whatever that strange phenomena had been, and the ghosts were doing their best to keep him from doing anything even had that not been the case. Meanwhile, Harry had already made it over to the body of the other champion and was about to summon the Portkey back to him.

If Peter wanted his new side to have any chance in the upcoming war, he couldn't let that happen.

He quickly went over what he knew about both the cup and Portkeys. Outright destroying the cup was out, because they had made the logical decision to make the thing indestructible. He could summon it himself, but he hardly wanted to take the risk of quite possibly getting teleported to Hogwarts, so that option was out as well. He also vaguely remembered the Dark Lord and Crouch speaking of how nobody really knew what happened when somebody made an object that was already a Portkey into a Portkey, since nobody who used such a Portkey was ever seen again.

When he took stock of the situation once more, he noticed that the cup was already flying in the general direction needed to reach Harry, so his mind quickly grabbed onto the last thought he had and rolled with it.

"Portus!"

Only looking back at the situation would Peter admit how much luck played into him being able to actually hit the cup. Despite that, he would always remain slightly pleased at the horrified look Harry got on his face when the thing started to glow blue far too late for him to stop it. It was unlikely he knew just how bad his situation was, but he seemed to at least realize that it wasn't good.

Then the moment was broken when the cup finally came into contact with the boy, whisking him away to nobody really knew where.

Silence overtook the graveyard as everybody present tried to wrap their minds around what had just occurred, while two of the more brave Death Eaters went out of their way to check up on the Dark Lord. Peter knew he should have felt overjoyed as his accomplishment, having defeated the greatest foe the Death Eaters had after Albus Dumbledore himself, but all he could feel was a sense of dread as to how the Dark Lord would react to the situation.

And when the man in question turned his gaze over to Peter, he knew that he was right to worry about the consequences.

"Crucio!"

And then all Peter knew was pain.

* * *

><p>Vivio Takamachi had been jogging.<p>

Considering she used quite a bit of spells from both the Modern and Ancient Belkan magic systems, it only made sense that she would try to keep as in shape as she could be, taking into account how much emphasis was put on mid-range and close-range combat amongst those who practiced them. Even if she had for some reason decided to specialize in Mid-Childan magic, the edge that being in shape would have provided during a fight was still considerable enough that she would have probably gotten into the same routine regardless.

So jogging was something that made quite a bit of sense for her to be doing, and nobody would have really bat an eye at the sight had there been anybody around to see it. Neither was it strange for her to suddenly lurch to a stop, staring at a spot where it was nearly impossible to see through the overgrowth, because having good eyesight was one of the benefits of being a clone of somebody who had gone through heavy genetic modifications.

Assuming somebody had also seen the two teenage boys who were at the very best unconscious where she was staring, and still assumed that there was nothing wrong with the situation, then she would have politely suggested that said person get a reality check.

She sent a message to her device through telepathy. {Sacred Heart, could you contact the authorities about a potential mugging? Let them know that I'm going to check up on the two victims.}

{Affirmative.}

{Also, keep an eye out for anybody approaching, in case the muggers are still around.}

{You will be warned.}

Pleased that she didn't have to worry about that side of things, Vivio tentatively made her way over to the two boys, eyes scanning the area around the three of them. Living with a godmother who was an Enforcer was enough to teach her that it never hurt to approach a situation with too much caution nearly as much as it did to approach one with too little. Considering the only experience she had where adventure was concerned was being kidnapped back when she was six years old, Vivio was willing to accept that advice.

Satisfied that she wouldn't be jumped the moment she cast her attention away from everything but the two boys, Vivio quickly positioned the smaller of them on the ground next to the taller one, who he had previously been sprawled out on top of. Considering he looked to be a lot more beat up, Vivio assumed he had been attempting to protect the other boy from their assailants.

It only took a minute to determine that there were no injuries on his person that would run the risk of him dying if nothing was done, although Vivio had little doubt that he was going to end up going to the hospital because of the ones that were there. There was a rather bad cut located on his right arm, and she was fairly certain that he had lost quite a bit of blood from that, so the assumption only made sense to her. Fortunately, she doubted that he would be there much longer than a day.

{...and the other doesn't seem to have any injuries to speak of,} Vivio finished her briefing of events.

{The data has been sent to the authorities,} Sacred Heart said. {They thank you for your assistance in investigating this matter. Your godmother would also like you to know that she is proud of how level-headed you were in handling this situation, and is planning to assist the investigation herself.}

Vivio giggled despite herself. {I guess she's finally going stir-crazy from the vacation, huh?}

{She could be simply worried about a crime that's taken place on the same path that you usually jog,} Sacred Heart said.

{How would she know I usually jog this path?}

{She inquired about it earlier, and I had no reason to withhold the information.}

{Sacred Heart!}

{What?} the device questioned. {You know that it's for the best that she know where you normally are in case something happens to you.}

Vivio paused a moment to consider that, most of her indignation draining away. {Yeah, but you still could have told me you told her.}

{What purpose would that have served?}

{Well, I would have liked to know.}

{I shall keep that in mind for the next time I am asked something of little consequence,} Sacred Heart said without a trace of sarcasm, although it was hard to tell with devices. {By the way, the authorities would like you to check up on the second boy just to make sure they don't need to make any accommodations for something that happened to him.}

{You got it!}

Looking back at her decision to not check on the health of the second boy, Vivio decided that it was probably a bit preemptive. He could have had a terrible injury somewhere that was out of her line-of-sight and she would have never noticed it. However, considering there was no blood pooling anywhere around him, she was fairly certain she had been correct in her assumption.

Therefore, she decided to start with something simple, such as identifying his pulse.

* * *

><p>All things considered, Fate thought she was handling the situation far better than Nanoha would have been, had she not been on that mission away from Mid-Childa at the time. She certainly had plans to see what she could do about getting the person responsible for traumatizing her goddaughter a demotion, but that was more from a professional standpoint than it was a personal one. There was absolutely no reason why they had to ask a fifteen year old girl to check on somebody who had been mugged before the proper authorities got there.<p>

She had then tried to comfort Vivio as soon as she had arrived back at the house, but the girl was far too devastated to pay any mind to that. The paramedics had not brought her to the hospital with the two boys, deciding that she had seen enough that night, but Fate got the idea that her goddaughter would have probably been much better off there.

Realizing that any further attempts to calm Vivio down would be a losing battle, Fate instead decided to find out as much about the two boys as she could from the doctors who had seen them, just in case there was something to be learned that would help Vivio start to get over the whole mess. Being one of the Aces made getting that information far easier than it otherwise would have been, especially since Fate had already managed to get herself declared a part of the investigation.

Luckily enough, there was one major thing that she learned which invalidated something that she was sure was eating her goddaughter up, and some relatively good news on the part of the younger of the two.

Then she got home and learned that somebody else had already arrived.

"Sacred Heart told me to come here," Einhard Stratos explained immediately and without prompt. "Vivio's locked herself in her room, though."

"I don't blame her," Fate said sadly.

"What happened?"

Fate sighed. "Vivio had the misfortune of running into a pair of kids who were mugged this morning. One of them was already gone by the time she got around to checking on him."

Einhard winced. "And the other?"

"The other should be just fine," Fate said with but a ghost of a smile. "Most of his wounds are nothing to worry about, other than a particularly deep gash on his arm, and it should take them only a few minutes to deal with that. He also has some sort of parasite leaching off of his linker core, but they've dealt with those type of things before. He should make a full recovery by the end of the week."

"Good." Einhard sighed. "Am I allowed to ask how the dead one died?"

Fate nodded, and sat down in one of the chairs in the living room. "I was never told it was to be confidential, so they would be more to blame for it if it is. His linker core imploded in on itself. They're working under the theory that he also had one of those parasites, and it drained him of his magic much quicker than it did the other."

"The Belkan forces used parasites as a stealthy form of attack every once in a while, so I can confirm that the theory has its merits," Einhard agreed. "Of course, that leaves us with the fact that there are parasites somewhere that two teenagers could come into contact with them, and I imagine one that's on the loose somewhere in Cranagan."

"I hadn't even think about those implications yet," Fate muttered, shaking her head. "Anyway, that's stuff that I'm going to have to deal with later. For now, what are we going to do about Vivio?"

"We break into her room, drag her out kicking and screaming if need be, and explain to her everything you just said," Einhard offered with a shrug. "If all goes well, she should be able to get over this, for the most part. She'll still probably be really sad, but there's nothing we can really do about that other than give her time."

Fate arched an eyebrow. "Would you like to be the one to go get her, then?"

"Sure."

As she watched the girl quietly depart from the room, Fate for not the first time found herself thankful that Vivio had made such a loyal friend. Although she had gotten better about it over the years, there was still very little that Einhard would not go along with in order to stay friends with Vivio. Not that Vivio would ever stop being friends with somebody because they refused to go along with something she was doing if they didn't want to. Einhard had at least started to realize that her worries were mostly in her head, which was good.

It was but a few seconds before Einhard returned to the living room, carrying a squirming Vivio over her shoulder, and Fate decided that she may have been a bit behind on how exactly that friendship was going.

* * *

><p>Harry had no idea what Wormtail had done to the cup, but he had been in and out of consciousness for short periods all throughout the following days. Not that he could tell how long exactly it had been, but days certainly felt like a reasonable assumption. His stay in the hospital wing after his last encounter with the actual Voldemort certainly gave credence to that.<p>

When he finally woke up fully, he shot up into a sitting position, ignoring the disorientation and pain that followed that act. Finding out where he had ended up was much more important than little things like that. He was the only one who knew Voldemort was back. He had to warn Dumbledore. It was the only way to keep the wizarding world from falling for whatever schemes the Dark Lord was surely coming up with as he sat there.

He was fairly certain that he was in a hospital. He had never personally been to one before, but it looked a lot like the depictions he saw of the things in the television. When he stopped to take the whole thing into consideration, he also determined that there was a certain likeness to the hospital wing at Hogwarts, and he trusted Madame Pomfrey to be professional enough that such a comparison was not unwarranted.

Then his mind jumped to the question of whether or not it was friend of foe who had come into possession of him, but he used the fact that he still had his glasses on as evidence that the prior was true. There was absolutely no reason that the Death Eaters would refrain from using such an obvious weakness against him.

Wincing as he moved, Harry quickly transitioned himself over to the side of the bed, debating the pros and cons of walking around in the state he was in.

He eventually decided that it was worth it, if only so that he could find his wand. The last thing he wanted was to be too far away from the thing in case Voldemort attacked, since he had no idea how secret his presence in whatever hospital he was at was, and so no small amount of pain would deter him from getting to the thing.

He promptly fell on his face.

"Well, I guess that means you finally woke up, then..."

Harry winced, turning his attention over to the girl who had spoke. Then he blinked in surprise.

He knew that she was a witch at first glance. While she was more athletic than most of the witches Harry had met, and wearing clothes that wouldn't raise too many eyebrows in the muggle world, there were other things that gave her away immediately. Such as the fact that she had green hair, and only one of her eyes was a normal shade of blue while the other was, of all things, purple.

She sighed at him. "I hope your first response to waking up in a hospital isn't always to get up right away."

"That sounds about right." Harry smiled ruefully.

"Then I think you and Vivio are going to get along well," said the girl. "Do you at least have a good reason to have hurt yourself like that?"

"I need to get my wand," said Harry hesitantly.

The girl rolled her eyes, walked over to one of the drawers around the room, and pulled out his wand after taking a moment to search. "This thing?"

"Yeah."

"Here you go, then." The girl handed him his wand. "Do you need a hand getting up, by the way?"

Having managed to prop himself up into a sitting position against his bed, Harry shook his head in response. "No. I'll be fine."

"If you say so..."

Harry ignored the slightly worried look on the girl's face, in favor of making sure nothing was wrong with his wand. He suddenly found himself living in dangerous times, from the moment Voldemort returned until whenever it was that the Dark Lord would fall, and he had learned the risks of using a damaged wand from Lockhart during his second year. Fortunately, the inspection showed that nothing seemed to be wrong with the thing.

"That thing's meant to channel your magic, right?" asked the girl.

"Yeah," Harry said with an absent nod.

"The forensics people are going to have a field day with that, then." The girl grinned. "They had a look at it and decided that it makes no sense. It's been driving them mad for the past few days."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." The girl nodded. "It doesn't help that your linker core isn't exactly supposed to work like a normal one. I swear, if you can actually make your magic do stuff, it'll be one of the biggest things in recent history..."

"What?"

"Anyway, that isn't important," the girl decided. "Where are you from?"

Harry blinked for a moment. "Surrey. Why?"

"Asteion's translator has been going throughout this conversation, so I could tell you aren't normally from around here." The girl shrugged. "I got curious."

"Oh. In that case, I'm from Britain," Harry explained sheepishly. "I just kind of assumed we were still there, sorry..."

The girl smiled. "Don't worry about it. Anyway, I should probably let one of the doctors know you're awake now, shouldn't I? They'll probably shout at you if they see you got out of bed, so I'd do something about that before they get here."

Harry was perhaps even more sheepish than he was moments before. "Alright, thanks."

"Don't worry about it." The girl turned to exit the room, before pausing. "By the way, I wouldn't try casting any spells right now. They put a really powerful limiter on your linker core because they didn't want you to accidentally blow up the hospital. To be fair, it _is_ a hospital, and it blowing up would be bad."

"Wait, what?!"

"You know what? I'll let the doctor explain," the girl decided. "They know more about this sort of stuff than I do."

She then slipped out of the room before Harry could say anything.

Meanwhile, Harry's mind had slipped into overdrive, and none of the thoughts were particularly pleasant. Voldemort was on the loose and he had no magic to defend himself. The fact that he was apparently in another country than the man hardly mattered, since Wormtail had an easy enough time of whisking him there. The idea of Voldemort not being able to do the same to himself only refrained from being laughable because Harry was hardly in a good enough mood to do so.

Then there was the fact that his magic could be sealed at all. Learning that he had magic was without a doubt the best moment of his life, and to suddenly find that he could no longer use it was terrifying.

And then there was Cedric. He had somehow managed to avoid thinking of the other boy ever since he got up, but he suddenly couldn't get his mind to think about anything else, unless that something else happened to be Voldemort. The girl had refrained from bringing him up, but Harry had little doubt that his fellow champion had ended up being dragged along for the ride. So much for getting his corpse back to his parents.

Upon looking back at the day, Harry would decide that he felt bad for the poor doctor that came in to check up on him mere minutes later. He would also decide that he needed to work at dealing with his anger before he ended up exploding at somebody again.

At least his explosion wasn't literal. He had heard from a fairly reliable source that explosions inside of hospitals were bad.

* * *

><p>AN - I think I've said it enough in VTME that you all know I don't own either Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha or Harry Potter, so I'm just going to say it this once to remind you all.

And now that VTME has indeed been brought up, I should probably let you all know what happened with it. To make a long story short, I lost all the notes about it because of reasons, and realized I made so many mistakes with the thing whey attempting to reread it. I eventually decided that it would be better to just take the idea and rework it later than try to salvage the story, and haven't come up with a good way of doing that until now.

So I apologize to all of you who enjoyed VTME, but I couldn't, and I think that would lead to the quality dropping to where none of you could either.


	2. In Which People Learn Things

In Which People Learn Things

Sometimes Harry wondered how he got into the situations he had to deal with, although he had to admit that the one he was all but dragged into the moment he was let out of the hospital wasn't exactly the worst conceivable.

He had been planning to head right back to Britain the moment be was allowed to leave the hospital, but that changed when he learned that the girl who he talked to immediately after waking up - whose name he learned was Einhard - was friends with the girl who found him. And although she refrained from mentioning it out loud, the way she said that probably meant that her friend had also found Cedric, which was a sight that somebody else around their age really didn't need to see.

So when he learned that she wanted to at least meet him, preferably outside of the hospital when he was mostly recovered from everything that had happened to him, he felt that he had to at least grant her that much. It was only right after the emotional distress he was sure she went through because of his mistake.

It helped that they were going to meet up in a restaurant. The hospital food he had access to over the past few days was hardly satisfying, and he didn't exactly bring any money with him on the third task that would allow him to buy his own.

"We'll be there soon," Einhard told him when she noticed him getting impatient.

Harry sighed. "Alright."

Other than shooting a concerned glance in his direction, Einhard didn't remark on how clearly bothered he was by something. He was rather grateful for that, because he really didn't want to take part in a conversation about Voldemort in the middle of a heavily populated city, which would probably end up being where things would drift on that front. He knew he had to tell somebody soon, though.

Preferably Dumbledore, but anybody else in a position of power who was willing to listen would be enough for Harry.

Eventually they reached the restaurant that was agreed upon, which was yet another of the numerous strange sights that Harry had been privy to since awakening in the city that he thought he had heard Einhard call Cranagan, since he was fairly certain the architecture was nothing like he had ever seen in Britain.

Heedless of his thoughts, Einhard lead him into the building, and right over to where the third member of their party was sitting.

The first thing that stuck him about Vivio was that she seemed to be the same age as him. He had assumed she was a few years older like Einhard, but she certainly looked young for her age if that was the case. The next thing he noticed was that she was only slightly less athletic than Einhard, which also brought his attention over to the fact that she was also likely taller than he was.

They quickly took their seats, Harry right across from Vivio while Einhard took one where she could easily keep an eye on each of them.

"Hey." Vivio smiled, and Harry could tell for the first time that she seemed to be just as nervous about the situation as he was. "I already ordered the two of you water to drink, if that's okay with you. If you want something else, I'm paying, so feel free to order whatever you want!"

"No, water's fine!" said Harry quickly.

Vivio shifted awkwardly at the outburst. "Alright. Feel free to order anything you want from the menu, anyway. I have a lot of money to burn."

"That's just because you never actually have to spend your money on anything," Einhard teased, not at all affected by the atmosphere between the other two. "I swear, if my family was half as generous as yours is, I would be one of the most spoiled girls around."

"T-They're not that bad!" Vivio blushed.

"Yeah, they really are."

Both girls simply stared at each other for a moment, a fire burning in both of their eyes, before Vivio giggled and turned her attention over to a menu. Einhard just rolled her eyes at her friend, and soon she was browsing the menu as well. Harry decided he may as well follow their lead on that matter.

He had heard the Dursleys complain about how little sense some of the names restraints gave their food were, so he was surprised to see that just about everything on the menu was relatively straightforward. While the complaints that his relatives made were oftentimes nonsensical, the things they complained about more often than not held some basis in reality, so either they had dropped the ball that once or it was yet another cultural difference for Harry to add to a rather lengthy list of cultural differences.

It was surprising just how much was different from Britain there, considering the only country he could think of that was as diverse as it was the United States, which was a country created by British people only about two hundred years earlier. And for whatever differences people on both sides claimed to have, Harry was fairly sure they still spoke english there.

Ironically, at least to him, they went the entire wait for their food to arrive in complete silence. It was only when they were about to eat that Einhard finally decided to break the ice once more.

"So, tell us about your friends back in England," she said, before taking a bite out of of her food. "I bet they're worried about you."

Harry winced. "Yeah, they probably are..."

"Don't worry, we'll get you back to them before the end of the week, probably." Vivio smiled at him. "My godmother's going to want to talk to you, since she managed to get herself in charge of your case, and then she'll be more than happy to get you back to your home! Did you know both me and her have family in that area?"

"No I didn't," Harry said.

"We do!" Vivio enthusiastically took a bite of food, and there was silence until she swallowed. "So, what are your friends like?"

A moment passed as Harry considered whether or not he should talk about his friends around a pair he hardly knew, but he eventually decided that he couldn't really cause much damage that way. Not after Voldemort had technically been their professor for a year. He still did his best to stay away from the more serious situations, since he really didn't want to bother anybody more than he had to with knowledge of what was happening.

Once he was pretty much done speaking, Einhard had a glint to her eyes.

"Congratulations, Vivio, you are a combinations of his two friends." Her grin widened as the other girl looked baffled. "You eat everything and then coop yourself up in the library."

"Hey!"

Harry actually chuckled at that. It was like watching Ron and Hermione going at it, only without any of the force behind their words.

Both girls seemed rather pleased at the reaction.

The rest of the meal was actually quite pleasant. The three teenagers talked about everything and nothing throughout the whole thing, and it actually helped to take his mind off Voldemort and everything else for a short time. He really felt kind of bad about that after the fact, considering a lot of people could die unless he got the information to Dumbledore soon, but since it also meant Vivio was probably not thinking about what happened to Cedric he considered it a win.

After paying the bill, Vivio lead Einhard and he out of the store with a bounce to her step.

"Is there anything you want to do before talking to my godmother?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Not really, no." Harry shook his head with a sigh. "Actually, there's something I really important that need to tell somebody about, so I want to speak with her as soon as possible."

Einhard frowned. "That's kind of pushy. On a scale of one to ten, how important would you say this thing is?"

"Eleven."

"Oh. I guess that's understandable, then."

Vivio noticeably increased the pace of her stride, and Harry actually had to work at keeping up with her. Nothing too bad, of course, but it was getting to the point where he had half a mind to consider what they were doing jogging. As long as he got to tell somebody about Voldemort quicker, that didn't particularly bother him.

"Right! I should probably let her know we're on our way," Vivio said with only a fraction of her earlier cheerfulness.

"I'll do that," Einhard volunteered. "I worked as her aide for a little while, so I know the buttons to push to get her taking something seriously. This had better be that important, Harry."

"It is," he said seriously.

"I'll take your word for it, then."

Harry marveled for a moment how seriously they were taking what somebody they hardly knew said about the severity of a situation, before remembering that he was most likely found bloody alongside a dead body. He knew that he would take somebody found in that sort of situation seriously if they said something of the sort.

Although he certainly noticed that neither girl so much as spoke beyond that point, so he had no idea how Einhard was expecting to let anybody know anything.

* * *

><p>It was a simple fact that Fate Harlaown was neither Nanoha Takamachi nor Hayate Yagami, but it was also one that had a great many benefits to it. She wasn't renowned around the entirety of Mid-Childa as the Ace of Aces, nor was she known to be a living Lost Logia, so she was able to go out more without worrying about people reacting. That she never got into a habit of putting her paperwork off like her friends did was only just an added bonus.<p>

So not being her best friends allowed her to do a great many things on her vacations that neither of them would quite be able to do, and that meant she was ready to speak with Harry the moment Einhard made contact with her so that she knew they were on their way.

{Bardiche, bring up everything we managed to find on Harry Potter.}

{Yes, sir.}

Fate quickly started scanning the holo-screen that her device brought up, and sighed at the lack of information there was to go off of.

The one thing she had been able to learn without a shadow of a doubt was that the boy was indeed from Earth, although he seemed to disappear from the world quite often starting from when he turned eleven. Fate suspected a secret society was involved there, which would explain how he had the ability to use magic, but they were too good at hiding themselves for Fate to be able to prove their existence, let alone have any idea what sort of things they did.

Therefore, she was understandably wary of letting Vivio spend any time with him alone, and only decided to do so without keeping an eye on them because Einhard had managed to get herself wrapped up in the meeting. The reason the girl stopped being her aide certainly wasn't because she lacked the competence needed.

But that worry was wholly unnecessary, it seemed. Fate was glad, because it would have been a real shame for a magic user from the world she considered a home to end up being some sort of criminal. Not that criminals reforming was something she was terribly unfamiliar with.

{They are almost here, sir,} Bardiche informed her after a few minutes of her looking through the files.

{Thank you, Bardiche.} Fate smiled at the device. {Can you let Vivio and Einhard know that I'll be waiting for them in the living room?}

{Of course, sir.}

With a smile on her face, Fate took a seat where she could see every other seat in the room, so they would be able to sit down wherever they wanted to. It never hurt to be accommodating when you had no idea what the person you were going to be talking with has gone through. Not that she particularly wanted Vivio to hear what put Harry in such a state, but she was more than resourceful enough to find out on her own in the future, so she would be allowed to stay if Harry wanted.

{They have arrived.}

{Thank you, Bardiche.}

No sooner did she finish speaking than did the three teenagers enter the room. Fate quickly nodded in greeting to Vivio and Einhard, who both returned the action, but her gaze focused in most intently on Harry.

"Good evening, Harry." She smiled at him. "How was your day?"

"It was alright," he said nervously.

"That's good." Fate smiled. "How about the three of you take a seat and then we can talk about a few things?"

It looked as though Harry was about to object to something about that statement, but he changed his mind when both Vivio and Einhard made their way to their favorite chairs before he so much as moved. He sighed, looking nervously between the two, before taking a seat of his own in the corner of the room.

It was odd behavior, and the only reason Fate could think for it would be that he didn't want the two to hear whatever it was he had to say.

{Fate,} Einhard said. {Maybe we should tell Harry where he is before he talks about whatever it is he wants us to know, since there may be things he'll take for granted we know if we don't.}

{That would probably be best,} Fate agreed.

{I could do it!} Vivio blushed as the two turned towards her. {I mean, if the two of you don't already have an idea of what to say, that is...}

Fate smiled softly. {We don't know enough about the society he learned how to use magic comes from to know what could set him off, so you may as well.}

{Thanks!}

Vivio tilted her head to the side, examining the situation.

Fortunately, Harry was far too engrossed in examining his surroundings to notice the silent conversation that went on around him, and Fate easily realized that he had been focusing in on the things that were far too advanced to exist on Earth. That was perhaps not so fortunate, since he probably knew something was up.

And while it would be good that convincing him that he wasn't on Earth would be easier, the fact remained that they had no idea how he would react to it.

"Hey, Harry," Vivio said at last. "Where do you think you are right now?"

Harry frowned. "I have no idea."

"Really?"

"Not at all." Harry shook his head. "I thought for a bit that it was America, but they also speak english there, and Einhard said she was using some sort of translator to understand what I was saying."

"I remember saying something to that effect," Einhard agreed sheepishly.

"Good job, Einhard!" Vivio blissfully ignored the look her friend shot at her. "Is there anything else you noticed that strikes you as strange, Harry?"

"Too many things to mention," Harry muttered.

"Then I guess I may as well not beat around the bush," Vivio said. "Harry, we aren't on Earth."

Fate raised an eyebrow at his reaction.

He clearly believed Vivio, which was a surprise in and of itself, since the surprise on his face made it clear that he had never experienced such a thing as inter-dimensional travel before. There was a moment where she was worried he was going to snap, and people with the type of linker core he had were incredibly dangerous when they did, but he stopped short of actually saying anything.

Instead, he took a few deep breathes, and seemed to focus in on something else entirely.

"You said you have family near where I'm from," Harry observed.

"My grandparents, aunt and uncle," Vivio agreed with a smile. "Fate-Mama also has her sister-in-law living there, and her mother and brother do when they have enough time off to justify the trip. They all live in Japan, though."

Harry took one last calming breath. "So I don't have to worry about not being able to get back?"

"Not at all." Vivio smiled.

Something was muttered under Harry's breath, but Fate could make out enough of the tone to know it was more self-deprecating than insulting to anybody else in the room, so she decided to wait until a later point to address it. For that moment, there were more important things to be discussed.

She made sure to do her best not to forget that little tidbit, though, since that particular tone was both a familiar and unpleasant thing to her.

"Now that we have that matter out of the way," Fate said, "what is it that you needed to talk about?"

Harry once again turned his gaze over to Vivio and Einhard. "Err... I think it would be best if..."

"I understand." Fate turned to both girls with a apologetic smile on her face. "It would probably be best if the two of you were to leave for the time being."

It looked like Vivio wanted to say something to that, but she was a mature enough girl to realize Harry needed to be comfortable when talking about whatever had hurt him. Or perhaps it was the look Einhard threw at he that managed to keep her from speaking.

In any case, the two departed rather quickly.

Finding herself alone in a room with Harry Potter for the first time, Fate noticed that he seemed to be having second thoughts about coming to her about whatever the matter of grave importance was. That was quite understandable, considering she was a woman he had never met before, and she was sure there was somebody in particular he would have preferred to speak about it with. She gave him a moment to calm down.

"It's really a long story, and probably won't make much sense without knowing how things work in the wizarding world," Harry said.

Fate smiled softly. "You figured it out, and you even said yourself that you're rather new to it."

"True..."

Silence passed over the pair for a moment, before Harry finally started speaking.

The story that followed was, quite frankly, unbelievable. A man calling himself Lord Voldemort, who was powerful enough to threaten an entire country with just a small band of followers, had risen up and made an attempt to kill anybody who hasn't had magic in their family for under a certain number of generations. He had only been killed when his own spell rebounded from Harry, and he had somehow managed to survive regardless. After making a few attempts on Harry's life, Voldemort recently returned to power, and planning to pick up right where he left off.

It was during a confrontation with the newly-revived Voldemort that Harry got sent to Mid-Childa, although it was by the actions of a man named Wormtail instead.

The contents of the story itself weren't the unbelievable thing. Through one means or another, people had done each of those things except the coming back from the dead part, which Jail had made plans to do. It was all perfectly feasible, if a bit disconcerting that it was just one man who managed to pull all of those feats.

The unbelievable part was that it had happened on the world Fate considered to be her home, and she never noticed.

Well, she certainly needed to make up for lost time.

* * *

><p>Her godmother reacting to what Harry had to say was one of the most distressing things Vivio had seen in a long time.<p>

Fate had always done her best to keep from showing the attitude she gained from her work around Vivio. The only reason Vivio knew that attitude even existed was because Einhard had told her, having worked with Fate for a time, and it had sounded just as jarring to Vivio as seeing it was proving to be.

There was little discussion between the two. Fate tried her best to comfort Harry, but it was clear to Vivio that the woman wasn't in the the right mood to be able to. She seemed to realize that herself, because she pretty much gave up the effort after a moment, instead telling Harry to go talk with Vivio and Einhard while she went to see if there was anything she could do to help.

Seeing that he needed to be cheered up slightly, and rather needing to let out some of her emotions after hearing what had happened to him, Vivio pulled Harry into a hug as soon as he passed through the door from the room. The boy stiffened, but that wasn't all too surprising considering all he had been through.

"Calm down, Harry," Vivio said warmly. "Now that Fate-Mama knows what's going on, Voldemort isn't going to be able to do anything."

She could feel Harry sigh. "You heard all that?"

"Yeah." Vivio pulled away from him, putting her fists on her hips. "And before you start complaining about eavesdropping, you were being rather straightforward about how you got a lot of the information about what was going on in that school of yours!"

"It's not that," Harry said quickly.

"Then it's because you didn't want us to know about what's going on," Einhard said. "As noble as that sentiment would be, if she didn't learn what's happening on Earth here, Vivio would have just gone there herself to find out. Her family lives there, after all."

Harry's face paled. "Oh..."

"We're the same age as you are," Vivio noted with a frown.

"To be fair, you're only a few months older," Einhard said. "I have two years on him, though, so any arguments he could make about you really don't stand."

"Yeah, but still!"

Einhard just shook her head slightly, motioning towards Harry. Vivio turned her attention back towards the boy, who was staring dejectedly at the ground, and she bit her lip. After everything he had to reveal about himself, the last thing she wanted was for him to be yelled at over it.

"I think that's enough of that," Einhard declared. "Harry, how much do you know about the world you're on right now?"

"That it isn't Earth," Harry said sourly.

"Well, we're going to need to fix that!" Vivio grinned. "While Fate-Mama works on coming up with a plan to deal with Voldemort, we can help you get caught up on everything you need to know about the TSAB! How does that sound?"

"I guess, but I really feel that I should let somebody know that I'm alright," Harry murmured.

Vivio tilted her head to the side in thought. "Do any of your friends have a cellphone?"

"I don't think so." Harry frowned. "I mean, the wizarding world really doesn't keep up on technology, so I doubt Ron has one. Hermione may, since she's a muggleborn, but I've never heard her say anything about it."

"Hermione Granger, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Just making sure!" Vivio quickly pulled her own cellphone out of her pocket, and quickly dialed Amy's number. "Give me a few minutes to see what I can do, alright?"

* * *

><p>Hermione kicked the air absently as she read through the book in front of her.<p>

For whatever reason, Professor Dumbledore refused to tell either her or Ron what had happened to Harry, only going so far as to let them know that he and Cedric had been whisked away from Hogwarts through use of a Portkey. He never even tried to say he had no idea what happened after that, but he refused to pass that information over them. He stated that it was because there was nothing they could do with it.

So Hermione decided to work with what she got. As soon as she got home from Hogwarts, which the headmaster had closed early without regard for what anybody else said, she had her parents take her to Diagon Alley, whereupon she bought every book she could find on the topic of Portkeys.

Unfortunately, there was nothing in the books that would be of much help, which really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. Dumbledore would have gotten Harry back already if the answer was that commonly known.

Reaching the last page of the book, Hermione threw it to the side with a squeal of frustration.

"Why aren't books ever useful when they need to be?!"

The answer to that question came in the form of her cellphone ringing, which brought Hermione up short.

She had first gotten the thing in order to keep in touch with her parents, but the reception at Hogwarts was rubbish. It didn't help that there were no electric outlets in the school, meaning there was nothing she could do with the phone after it ran out of battery, so it usually just ended up being a glorified paperweight. To add to that, the only two people in the world who she gave her number to were her parents.

The name on the caller ID really didn't help, since it was one that Hermione had never seen before. She could only say with reasonable certainty that it was a foreign one, but there were a number of students with foreign names at Hogwarts.

During her indecisiveness, the phone stopped ringing.

"And this is precisely why you never had any friends before getting to Hogwarts," Hermione murmured. "Good job."

Tentatively making her way through the menus on the phone, which she honestly couldn't remember much about, Hermione finally go to the missed calls section and clicked on the number of the mystery caller.

The other phone only rang once. "Hello?"

"Err... Hi," Hermione said. "You called me just now...?"

"Yeah, hold on." The girl seemed to move away from the phone. "Here you go!"

"Thanks," said a voice that Hermione would never forget.

"Harry!"

"Please don't break my ears," Harry pleaded.

"Sorry." Hermione laughed. "You're alive!"

She knew him well enough to know he was frowning. "Does everybody think I'm dead?"

"We don't know," Hermione admitted. "Professor Dumbledore hasn't told Ron and I what happened to you, so we have no idea what they think about things. Fudge seems certain that both you and Cedric are dead, though."

"Well, he would be half right," Harry said quietly.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry!" Hermione felt that her phone was going to break with how tightly she was gripping it. "What happened?! If you want to talk about it, I mean. I'd understand completely if you didn't want to talk about it, and you don't have to, but I'm here for you if you decide -"

"Breathe, Hermione." Harry actually laughed a little. "I'd rather talk about it in person, but there's something I need to ask you."

"Anything," Hermione said solemnly.

There was a pause. "What's the spell Portus do?"

"It makes a Portkey," Hermione said instantly. "Why?"

"Well, I was going to use the Portkey that took me away from the school to get back, but Wormtail cast that spell on it before I could," Harry said. "Then I ended up here."

Hermione paled. "Harry, nobody's ever been seen again after using a Portkey that's had the spell cast on it twice!"

"Ack! Ear, Hermione! Ear!"

"Sorry!" Hermione winced when she realized she was no quieter than before. "I'm sorry, but can you really blame me? Where _are_ you, Harry?"

"That was going to be explained to me as soon as we were finished talking," Harry admitted.

"Don't let me hold you, then." Hermione smiled. "Just be sure to let me know where you are later, alright?"

"Alright. Could you let everybody know that I'm alive?"

"Well, it would be easier if I could use Hedwig to sent them letters."

"Do you _have_ Hedwig?"

"Yeah, and I kind of stole everything needed to take care of her," said Hermione sheepishly.

"Then I don't see why you can't." Harry laughed. "And it's not stealing if it's to do what the person you took it from would do with it."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I don't think it works that way."

"In any case." There was a shrug in his voice. "Talk to you later, Hermione."

"As soon as you learn what's going on," Hermione said.

"As soon as I can," Harry amended.

"Fine." Hermione sighed. "Just don't leave me fretting here, alright?"

"Sure thing, Hermione."

* * *

><p>AN - I should have probably mentioned this last chapter, but I'm in college now, so that's going to slow down my update speed significantly. Not the only factor related to that, but it's one of the most major ones. Sorry to any of you guys who wanted updates at the same speed I had going with VTME.


	3. In Which Things Start Rolling

In Which Things Start Rolling

Three days was both a long and short span of time for Einhard. On one hand, she had memories of one of the worst wars in the history of Dimensional Space, and knew what happened when you waited too long to make a move against your enemies. On the other hand, she had memories of one of the worst wars in the history of Dimensional Space, and she knew that making rash decisions was an easy way to find yourself with a long list of casualties.

So Einhard decided to not get involved with Fate's planning beyond occasionally stopping in to see how far along she was. The woman would also bounce ideas off of her, but Einhard steadfastly avoided doing anything to get more involved in the planning than she needed to be.

In spite of that, Einhard was still one of the first people to know when Fate had finished going through all the laws she needed to for a plan to truly start forming, and was therefore given the task of gathering the other two involved.

When she entered the room where the two were, she smiled at the fact that they had fallen into the habits that they gained over the past few days of their acquaintance.

Harry was making good use of the freedom he had from something called the Trace, since they had determined that the Ministry of Magic wouldn't hold his use of magic against him when they had though he was dead, although some of the spells he practiced quite frankly terrified Einhard a bit. Nothing broken in some of the ways he broke them should have been repairable in the slightest, and he did so with a single flick of his wand. If she ever had any doubt about him having a completely different system of magic than she had ever seen before, that would have been enough to convince her.

Shaking off that little bit of eeriness, Einhard turned to Vivio with a renewed smile. The girl was talking animatedly about history, magic theory, and just about every other topic under the sun over the phone. It was entirely too possible that Hermione was on the other side of the call, being just about the only person Einhard had ever met to top Vivio in terms of enthusiasm in learning new things, and would therefore being entirely too happy to listen to whatever Vivio had to say.

It was a friendship that was fortunate to start when it did, since the news they gained from Earth right before it was enough to darken all of their moods.

"Professor Dumbledore doesn't believe it was really Harry who called me," Hermione had said.

Harry looked as though he was about to object to that, before pausing. "Well, it was easy enough to trick people into thinking we were Crabbe and Goyle in our second year, and Voldemort has had years on us to learn better tricks." A grimace made itself known on Harry's face. "I'd like to think I'm harder to impersonate them either of them were, though."

Hermione had huffed out a laugh. "I don't think that's a terribly difficult thing to do."

"I'd like to think so," said Harry, frowning slightly. "Please tell me that's all the news you have?"

"Just one thing." The ensuing sigh was much easier to make out than it ought to be over the phone. "Professor Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort is going to do something rash with how you disappeared. We have a spy in the Death Eaters, and he said that Voldemort was having a panic attack for a while after what happened to you."

"And anything that happens because of it would be my fault," murmured Harry.

"Harry, no!" Hermione took a moment to calm down, which was good, because she sounded absolutely distressed just then. "How about you tell me where you are? You told me you would the last time we talked, after all."

That had Harry shifting a bit awkwardly. "Well, I know where I am, but a lot of the explanations went over my head."

"Is there somebody there who can explain it better than you can."

"Err... Yeah?"

"Then how about you put me on speakerphone and let me speak with them?" There was a bit of cheekiness in her tone, which served to calm Harry down a little bit. Hermione being normal for the thing being was without a doubt a good thing.

Not knowing how to operate a cellphone, Harry opted to give the thing to Vivio to let her do as instructed. That was pretty much the death knell for discussion between Hermione and anybody other than Vivio, with both Einhard and Harry soon sitting on the sidelines, bemused as the two started talking in technical terms that the other ought to have not understood, but somehow managed to work them out anyway.

Which, incidentally, was exactly how most of their conversations since seemed to go, although it was harder to tell without speakerphone being activated.

Einhard took one last moment to smile at the scene before clearing her throat loudly.

"Hey, Einhard!" Vivio waved at her cheerfully.

"Vivio. Harry." Einhard nodded at the two of them. "Fate finally came up with a plan."

A single flick of his wrist was all it took for Harry to repair the glass in front of him for the third time, and he seemed to miss how Einhard flinched at the act. "Then how about we get going?"

"Certainly." Einhard turned her gaze towards Vivio. "Is Hermione still there?"

"Loud and clear," Hermione said, although Einhard was sure speakerphone was off but a moment before.

"Good." Einhard nodded, pushing that matter away for a later time. "Fate needs to work out the kinks in the plan, and you can probably help with that more than the three of us combined can."

Hermione sputtered for a moment. "I don't know. Vivio's picking things up really fast..."

"As do you, and you've lived in the wizarding world for the past five years." Einhard raised an eyebrow at the small squeak that passed through the phone. "Are you alright, Hermione?"

"I'm alright." It was all too easy to tell Hermione was flustered, and she took a moment to collect herself. "Anyway, what do we do now?"

The first response Einhard could think of was to motion towards the door. "Well, first we need to get to the same room Fate is in to talk with her about it..."

* * *

><p>Fate allowed herself a few more moments to scowl at the rules and regulations in place in regards to dealing with Unadministered Worlds before the three teenagers entered her office, at which point she did her best to twist her expression into something more positive.<p>

Einhard didn't buy it. "What's the matter?"

"I never realized just how many laws went into interacting with Unadministered Worlds without any Lost Logia lying around." Fate shook her head ruefully. "It would be illegal for me to bring any forces to Earth on an official capacity without the local government first requesting aid, for one thing."

"Which means we would need the Minister of Magic to ask us for help, and that would only allow us to act in Britain," Vivio realized.

"Considering how Fudge acts, I wouldn't expect that any time soon," Harry said. "He was willing to put Hagrid in Azkaban without even giving him a trial to keep Lucius Malfoy happy. I can't see him relying on somebody outside of his control if he could help it, especially if he's never heard of the TSAB before. Not against Voldemort."

"And that's assuming he so much as acknowledges Voldemort as being back," said a voice that Fate vaguely recognized as belonging to Hermione Granger.

Fate frowned at that. "Would you say Voldemort already has a puppet in office, then?"

There was a pause before Hermione spoke again. "No, I don't think so. Fudge just seems to have been tricked into thinking Lucius is a respectable man who was being controlled during the first war."

"Then the two most obvious options we have in front of us would be to either get him out of office or convince him that Lucius Malfoy isn't as trustworthy as he claims to be," Fate said.

"We could still take a third option," Einhard reminded her. "I vaguely remember there being a law that a Bureau agent could assist a private business on an Unadministered World if the one in charge of the business asked for it. Hermione, would you say Hogwarts counts as a private business?"

"The Ministry hasn't really gotten involved with it since its founding," Hermione affirmed.

Fate nodded slowly. "Teaching may not be my strong suit, but getting into contact with Dumbledore is probably the best thing we can do at this point. Based upon everything you said about your former professors, my lack of aptitude for the job probably won't be too much of a problem."

"I think you'll do fine, Fate-Mama!" Vivio paused for a moment, before nodding. "All the people you helped train back when we were in Riot Force 6 ended up being really good at what they do, and Erio in particular picked up a lot from you! Even if you're not the best teacher in the world, I'm sure you'll be able to teach them more than any of their older professors did, except for maybe Professor Lupin!"

"But that won't matter unless we can get into contact with Dumbledore without breaking any laws," Einhard said. "I doubt Bureau agents are allowed to make first contact with an Unadministered World about providing any sort of aid if the Bureau's serious about protecting them from outside influence."

"Unfortunately," Fate agreed.

A humming sound passed through the phone. "I could probably do it, although I'm not confident in my ability to answer whatever questions Professor Dumbledore may have about the Bureau well enough to win over his trust."

"I could do it!"

Every eye in the room turned towards Vivio.

"What?" Einhard said.

"I can get into contact with governments on Earth without worrying about being punished, and so can Nanoha-Mama and Hayate!" Vivio almost grinned. "Being part of a family coming from Earth has its advantages, you know!"

Fate winced. "Yes, I suppose..."

"And you probably haven't told either of them about this because Nanoha-Mama would probably go in guns blazing, while Hayate is still on thin ice with the TSAB, so it's best to leave them out of it until after our assistance has been officially requested," Vivio continued. "Which also leaves us with Admiral Graham being able to do it, and he probably would if he wasn't in the hospital right now."

"Wait, what?" Fate frowned. "Since when was he in the hospital?"

"Two weeks ago. Hayate talked about it when I went over to visit, although she doesn't seem to be too worried. Neither Lotte or Aria are taking their human forms, though, since they want to save as much of his power as possible, which doesn't really bode well about how he's doing." Vivio paused. "I listen a lot."

Fate gawked at her goddaughter for a few moments, before taking a shaky breath. Images of Nanoha at the same age popped into her head, and while the girl had mellowed out by that point because of her accident, there was still very much a spirit she had about her that wouldn't let a terrible act go unpunished. It seemed that was one of the many traits that she passed onto her daughter.

The expression quickly slipped off of her face, instead being replaced with something that could resemble a smile if scrutinized closely enough. There were worse traits that Vivio could have piked up from her elders.

Harry had meanwhile started frowning. "Is there any reason I can't just go and talk to Professor Dumbledore?"

"There are a few things that need to be cleared up before you're allowed to leave Mid-Childa," said Fate. "Dumbledore is probably one of the only people who can help us with it, so we're going to need to talk with him before you can get going back to Earth."

"Alright..."

Harry departed the room with a heavy sigh, a dark look passing over his face before it disappeared from sight.

Vivio fidgeted around for a few moments, staring between Einhard and Fate, before turning off speakerphone and tentatively following Harry. She only stopped for a moment once she reached the door.

"I'll just... pack a few things to go see my grandparents," she said. "That would probably be the best explanation for why I went to Earth, right?"

Fate nodded slowly. "It probably would, yes."

"Cool!" Vivio plastered a smile onto her face. "Then I'll be doing that!"

Vivio departed just as quickly as Harry had, and for a moment silence overtook the room.

"What do you think? Is going to Earth going to help Vivio with this, or is it just going to make things worse?" Fate sighed. "I really don't want her to go, but..."

"Vivio is one of the most stubborn girls I've ever met. She'd find some way to get to Earth even if you did everything in your power to keep her here," Einhard said. "And I think going would probably be for the best. It's not a perfect science, but Claus found that people often got things off of their chests by going to the source of their problems."

Fate winced once more. "Honestly? That's what I'm worried about."

* * *

><p>Hermione had never really been friends with other girls before.<p>

It was that simple fact that had her grinning from ear to ear as she all but skipped through the park near her house, waiting for her two new friends to arrive from where they stayed the night with the Takamachi family in Japan. It had been surprising to learn that Einhard was going to arrive with Vivio, but apparently there had never been enough of a connection between her and the TSAB to disallow her the right to visit Earth with her best friend.

It was also surprising that they were going to talk to Dumbledore a day after coming up with their so-called plan, but dimensional travel was apparently much quicker than one would have otherwise expected. Vivio had managed to get to Midori-Ya a few hours after successfully packing her things.

There was a part of Hermione that wanted to learn how they did it, if only to get to the Infinite Library, but things like that were perfectly capable of waiting until Voldemort was no longer an issue.

Hermione found the spot that her friends were to teleport to and sat down on a bench.

Overgrowth had long since overtaken most of the area, in large part because it was so far out of the way that not many of the people tasked with the upkeep of the park even knew that it was located there, or at least never bothered to do anything about it. Hermione certainly hadn't known it was there until Einhard did a bit of digging. Their first plan was for the two to teleport right into her house, but that was apparently a universally rude thing to do.

Hardly a minute passed before the area was filled with colors, which vanished after a moment to reveal two rather strange girls standing in the clearing. Although neither of them looked terribly strange at all for being from another world entirely.

The blonde girl scanned the area quickly, and beamed when her eyes found what they had been searching for. "Hermione!"

"Vivio!" Hermione would recognize that voice anywhere. She shot up and pulled the other girl into a hug. "It's so good to see you!"

"You too!" Vivio returned the hug, and the two girls stood there for a moment before breaking apart. "I thought Einhard was trying to make a joke when she told me how much of a mess this place is!"

Hermione turned to the second girl that had appeared. "Do you normally joke about things like that?"

"No," said Einhard.

Hermione turned to Vivio with a raised eyebrow.

"Sue me for hoping my best friend finally got a sense of humor," Vivio murmured. "Not a good one, but still..."

Although too far away to make out what was said, Einhard turned a raised eyebrow of her own over towards her friend, challenging her to repeat what she had said loud enough to be heard by all. Vivio just grinned sheepishly back.

Hermione covertly rolled her eyes. "I recall you saying you need the exact coordinates of somewhere to teleport there?"

"Yes. Unless it's somewhere you've been to enough times," Einhard confirmed.

"Then we should probably get back to my house," Hermione said. "I remember Hogwarts a History containing information about nearby landmarks to the school, and it probably won't be too hard to find out what the coordinates of those are. I can't imagine Professor Dumbledore not being there at some point today."

A frown slowly slid over Einhard's face. "We're moving rather fast with this."

Hermione shifted a little bit. "Do you think we should slow down?"

"...No." Einhard slowly shook her head. "From everything you said about him, Dumbledore doesn't seem like the type to attack a child even if he's suspicious of them, so we probably don't have to worry about anything on that front. We'll still have more chances to convince him to work with the TSAB later if we can't do it now."

"Alright!" Vivio put on a grin for all to see. "Let's get to Hermione's place and make a plan!"

Twenty minutes later found the three girls sitting around the Granger living room, books scattered around haphazardly in their quest for knowledge. They were perhaps looking a bit too thoroughly into things than they needed to, but Einhard was running under the assumption that knowledge was power, and neither Vivio nor Hermione were terribly opposed to such a thought process.

It was only when the two from Mid-Childa were finally convinced that they knew all they needed to know for the upcoming meeting that Hermione experienced Belkan transportation for the first time.

* * *

><p>The Hogwarts library was usually a peaceful place. Perhaps unreasonably so, if one considered how draconian Madam Pince could get with upholding the rules. Children learned to stop talking quickly, would never even consider casting a spell while in there, and heaven help them if they ended up damaging one of the books since it was unlikely Albus Dumbledore would be able to do anything to stop the woman.<p>

But when the summer came around and Madam Pince went home to be with her family, there was nothing keeping the rules in place. That was a fact that Albus was more than willing to use to his advantage.

Books flew off their shelves, floating past the headmaster as he scanned their flipping pages. Not the best way to catch all the specifics on a subject, but he would certainly put the books to the side if they even seemed to have something useful within. Not that he expected them to, since he had already gone through them all in the past and remembered nothing noteworthy, but it was better than doing nothing. It kept his mind off of his most recent failure at the very least.

"Professor Dumbledore, are you there?" a voice shouted.

The man blinked, setting the books down with a flick of his wand. "Miss Granger, is that you?"

"Yes!" The sheer relief in her voice caught him off guard. "Come on, you two, he's over here!"

Albus quickly returned all the books to their shelves with a single flick of his wand, not for the first time finding himself rather disconcerted at the sheer amount of power he had at his disposal due to the legendary artifact, before turning in the direction of the voice just in time to see one of Harry Potter's best friends come into sight with two girls he had never seen before.

"Good evening, professor," said Hermione.

"Good evening to you, Miss Granger," Albus said back brightly. "I suppose you being here is about the one who claimed to be Mister Potter over the phone, then."

"It really is him, professor." Hermione's eyes tightened as she gazed at her professor.

"I see." Albus took a moment to look the three over once more. "Is it safe to assume that these two lovely ladies are part of the reason you believe so?"

The blonde girl blushed a bit, although she bestowed upon him one of the brighter smiles he'd seen in recent days for the comment. The one with green hair merely inclined her head slightly at the remark.

"Yes, and I know it's him now, too." Hermione was positively beaming. "He talked about something that Voldemort wouldn't have any way of knowing!"

"And what would that be?" Albus deliberately raised an eyebrow at the girl.

"Err... Well..." Granger started shifting from foot to foot. "You see..."

The blonde girl interjected brightly, "You mean how you brewed Polyjuice Potion that one time for Ron and Harry?"

"Vivio!"

"You wold have had to tell him eventually." The newly identified Vivio rolled her eyes at the outburst, although she did seem to be the slightest bit apologetic.

Albus stared at Hermione as though considering her for the first time. "And why did you need to brew Polyjuice Potion for them, exactly?"

"Err..."

"They wanted to get into the Slytherin Common Room to see if they could learn anything about the Heir of Slytherin, I believe," answered the green haired girl. "I don't think they found anything of note, but Hermione managed to make herself half-cat for a bit."

Hermione buried her head in her hands. "Einhard..."

That would have to have happened during their second year, Albus noted idly. There were very few children who could make Polyjuice by the end of their _seventh_ year, least of all a Gryffindor, with how Severus had taken to the class, so that she managed to do it as such a young age was rather amazing.

"Ten points to Gryffindor, effective the moment classes start once more," he declared.

Hermione reminded Albus very much of a prisoner who had just been told they were to be let free after years in Azkaban, which was precisely why there was going to be no punishment doled out. She already knew she had done something wrong. If that smug look that often slid onto the faces of Slytherin students when one of their harebrained schemes went right, Albus would have taken the points back in a heartbeat.

Instead, she had simply learned through one of her failures. It was something that Albus himself was familiar with, and would never dream of punishing another for.

The girl named Einhard coughed slightly. "Excuse me, professor. There's something I need to talk with you about pertaining to Harry, and I think we should do so in private."

"Yes, I believe you are correct." Albus noted absently that she bore the same professional look about things that Severus did whenever he returned with information. Perhaps a fair bit less jaded with the world than the potions master, but otherwise remarkably similar. "I dare say my office will suffice?"

"That'll work." Einhard nodded.

Neither Vivio nor Hermione seemed terribly happy about being left out of whatever discussion it was that was about to take place, and the headmaster noted absently that them being annoyed would do nobody any good. It was therefore good that he could think of how to appease at least one of them.

"While the two of us are up in my office discussing things, feel free to go through whatever books you would like in the library," Albus said. "I just ask that you use your discretion about what sort of material you look into."

Hermione's eyes lit up. "We can read books from the Restricted Section?"

"I believe that's what I said." Dumbledore smiled.

Vivio let out a little squeak as she was all but dragged into the depths of the library, Hermione not seeming to care in the slightest that she was invading the personal space of her friend. An unnecessary act, if the way Vivio kept scanning the various books around her was any indication.

Einhard chuckled. "That'll stall them for a few days."

"I had thought so," Albus agreed merrily. "If you'd follow me, the walk to my office should be but a few minutes from here."

Einhard simply nodded, and the two departed the room readily.

One of the first things Albus noted was that Einhard seemed to scan everything she saw with a sense of awe. From the moving paintings to simply the view, Dumbledore was certain he had never seen such expressions on a person after a few weeks into their first year. There was no doubt that the girl was used to magic, with the look in her eyes and the way she carried herself taken into account, but it was clear enough that whatever magic she was normally exposed to was different from what Hogwarts had to offer.

Not that he expected anything else with how Harry disappeared. The sole other person he had ever met from another world used a foreign type of magic as well.

The gargoyles were dispatched with one of his many passwords. Whether or not he got it correct hardly mattered, since the gargoyle would update every time he said a different password to it, and not many people would really need to visit him through that passage during the summer. And if somebody did, all he would have to do to let them in was to remotely tell the thing to open up.

A set of stairs was all that was left to traverse before he was sitting behind his desk, with Einhard sitting on the best chair he could conjure on the other side from him. She actually looked to be slightly unnerved at that display of magic.

Albus smiled softly at her. "I apologize if my magic bothers you. I know from experience that those from other worlds have a hard time stomaching some of the things wizards have managed to accomplish, and I dare say the reverse is just as true."

The only sigh of how caught off guard Einhard was by that was the widening of her eyes. "You know about other worlds?"

"I do indeed." Albus paused to think back. "It was a bad time in my life; my sister had died, I had a fight with my best friend that irreparably destroyed our relationship, the same could be said of my relationship with my brother, and I was unable to really do anything with my life at the time because of events that occurred even before any of that. I took to experimenting with Portkeys, since nobody would terribly miss me if anything happened, by my reckoning."

"I can see how you came to that conclusion." Einhard sighed, closing her eyes tightly.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Albus smiled at her grimly. "To cut a long story short, I ended up being transported to another world very much like I expect Harry was. In my case, the world I ended up on was one named Supools."

Recognition shot through Einhard's eyes. "I know a few people who live on that world."

"Then I suppose you realize how fiendish some of the creatures there can be." Albus shook his head merrily. "That was perhaps one of the most terrifying months of my life, being stuck in that forest."

"They turned it into a nature resort." Einhard winced. "With dragons."

Dumbledore hummed. "Yes. If I recall correctly, those were especially fiendish creatures, those space dragons."

Einhard actually giggled. She hardly seemed the type, but even Minerva would surprise everybody by giggling from time to time, so it was perhaps not one of the more surprising things that Albus had ever encountered. The girl stopped after a moment, and then a frown crossed her face.

"How did you get back to Earth?" she asked.

"A funny story, that." A smile graced Albus' face as he thought back to that. "Before I start, you have to realize that dragon meat was a rare delicacy on Supools back then, which may or may not be the case today. Back in those days, the largest, and thereby most powerful, dragon lived in a cave overlooking one of the only town for miles. I can't for the life of me remember what the name of that town was at the present moment. Regardless, they sent out one of their most powerful wizards, or I suppose mage would be the correct terminology in this case, to deal with the beast, since it was getting quite unruly over the preceding months. That it would make a great meal was just a good motivator for him."

A head slowly tilted to the side as Einhard considered that. "And what does that have to do with how you got back to Earth?"

"Well, you see, I chose that cave to sleep the night in," Albus explained, ignoring the girl's eyes as they widened once more. "When that mage finally arrived, the dragon and I were in the midst of combat unlike I had ever experienced before. I very well may have died if he had shown up a few minutes later. The two of us teamed up to combat the dragon, and then proceeded to spend the next five minutes having panic attacks about how almost everything the other did broke every law of magic that we could think of."

"And then he helped you get back to Earth," Einhard concluded slowly.

"After the two of us came to an agreement to never mention the other unless it was a matter of grave importance." Albus paused for a moment. "I'm certain that I had never ended up having to talk about what happened out there, which is probably for the best. The last thing I want is for the Wizarding World to strive towards getting out to Dimensional Space if some of the horror stories I'd heard from him are still true today. However I cannot say with any certainty whether or not he kept quiet about it."

Einhard shook her head. "He did. Your magic would be one of the biggest things to happen to Dimensional Space ever since the Unification War ended. Everybody would know about it."

"I'm very happy to hear that." Albus smiled, although he knew well enough that it didn't extend to his eyes. "I expect there was more you wanted to talk to me about? Or was it just that Harry ended up on another world?"

"I would have kept Vivio and Hermione around if it were only that." A very professional look reclaimed Einhard's face. "Something strange came up while Harry was in the hospital. Almost as strange to us as somebody with a linker core like yours that had clearly been in use, in fact. There was a parasite in his forehead."

Albus blanched. "So it really is there..."

"You know what it was," Einhard said, sounding the slightest bit relieved about that. "Nobody in our government really wants to let him leave the planet until they learn what it is, since parasites like that have a rather bad history in Dimensional Space."

"A worse history than you can imagine," Albus said quietly. Then more loudly he added, "I take it from your use of the past tense that you have destroyed it?"

"Removed it," Einhard corrected. "They kept it around to study."

Albus' face darkened. "I see."

"I take it that means it's bad." Einhard sighed.

"More than I think anybody on your world could ever imagine," Albus agreed. "Would it be too terribly disruptive if I were to go to your world?"

"That was part of the plan."

"Then we shall depart at once, unless something happens to-"

"Albus, we have trouble!"

"-disrupt us." Albus sighed.

There was not time for Albus to even invite the newcomer in before Alastor Moody burst through the door, his peg leg clicking rapidly against the floor as his enchanted eyes twisted around in its socket. The bloated blue eyeball quickly landed on Einhard, and Albus could tell that a long future of distrust was born in that moment.

There was a long moment of silence before Alastor said, "That can wait for later. The Dark Lord's making an attack on Azkaban right now, Albus, and I can only hope that you have some sort of plan ready for this!"

"A much more present matter to be dealt with," Albus mused. "Have you sent out any forces to assist the Aurors?"

"You know none of the Aurors want to set foot in that place if they can help it, and Fudge still has no idea that Voldemort is back, nor does he want to," Alastor scoffed. "And no, I haven't sent anybody yet. I figured you'd want to have a say."

Albus shook his head. "You know I trust you with this sort of thing, my friend. Split Kingsley, Tonks and yourself up, since you all are trained with deal with Azkaban better than anybody else in the Order, and disperse the rest of the Order out between the three of you. I recommend giving young Nymphadora a more advisory role than Kingsley and yourself, but that's up to you at the end of the day."

"Oh?" Alastor sneered. "And what are you going to do?"

"Hold the warden's office, of course." Albus rose from his seat imperiously. "Send the other three teams to different parts of the prison, if you would."

It looked for a moment as though Alastor was going to say something about that, but then thought better of it and simply departed the room in silence. Albus got the feeling that there really was something off about his friend, which was a feeling that had only strengthened as the previous school year went on, but it was hard to tell when the man went out of his way to change his quirks all the time. It was apparently too dangerous to keep them the same.

Absently, Albus noted that he would never truly understand his friend, but thoughts on that subject were misplaced on a battlefield. He tossed them to the side before turning to Einhard.

"I'm afraid this is something I'm going to need to deal with before we can do anything about Harry," he said. "I'll do my best to get to your world as quickly as I can, but if something happens to stall me, know that the so-called parasite is called a Horcrux."

Green hair was tossed around as Einhard shook her head, a dark look accompanying the act. "I'm going with you."

"Excuse me?" Albus frowned.

"You're going to an incredibly dangerous place with Dementors in it. Alone, while it's under attack by Voldemort." There was an air of finality to the words Einhard spoke. "I wouldn't let you go alone if even one of those things were true."

The girl suddenly looked like many of the people who Albus had worked with who had a long track record of getting themselves into trouble even after having been left behind, which he had long since learned to respond to by simply allowing them to follow him, since the only difference in leaving them on their own was that they didn't have anybody around to watch their backs.

Even if he wanted to disagree anyway, it seemed to him as though Einhard was closer in age to an adult than she was a child, so there was really nothing he could do to keep her from following him short of using force. It would have been a huge help if she had been a Hogwarts student.

Albus sighed.

"Very well," he said, summoning the floo powder with a wave of his hands. "Take a handful of this and follow my lead."

Einhard nodded, doing as she was told after Albus placed the jar onto the table. He quickly took a handful of it himself, taking one last moment to evaluate whether or not she would be of any use to him out on a battlefield, before walking over and tossing the powder into the fireplace.

"Azkaban, Warden's Office."

* * *

><p><strong>AN** - I am currently transitioning to a new writing style, so things may have ended up a bit wonkier than I would have liked near the end there.

**The dark-hearted angel** - Yeah, that probably would have been a good idea. I can't for the life of me remember why I didn't do that. I think I was just tired of that story, and really didn't want to bring any attention to it.

**Reishin Amara** - I'm just going to use this chance to state that there are going to be no pairings in this story.


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